Forbes: Ticket To Ride: How The Internet Fueled A New Board Game Powerhouse

“Days of Wonder’s Ticket to Ride has sold nearly 4 million combined hard and digital copies. Courtesy Days of Wonder.” – Forbes

Mark Kaufmann and Eric Hautemont were typical Silicon Valley denizens. Kaufmann served in marketing roles to software and internet start-ups. Hautemont founded Ray Dream, a 3D software developer for Mac, and ran his own seed fund. The money was good, the work engaging.

So please, feel free to balk when I tell you that they left it all behind in 2002 to get into… board games.

The duo wanted to test a typical Silicon-utopian theory: That it doesn’t matter what product category you’re in, if you can build something that people love, they’ll buy it and share it……